Miami Nice? Who Are the Dolphins R1 Surprises?

Miami Nice? Who Are the Dolphins R1 Surprises?

For months now, we’ve all tried to predict who Jon-Eric Sullivan’s Miami would take in round one. Then, after Jaylen Waddle was traded, we suddenly found ourselves with two first-rounders at 11 and 30, respectively. It’s fair to say that we’ve pontificated and ruminated over Styles and Bain and Downs and Tate and Delane and Fano. But what if the Dolphins go left field at each first-round spot? What if all the chatter and the 30 visits have been a giant smokescreen for a pair of under-the-radar picks?

Well, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Here are three left field selections for each of those two first-round spots.

PICK 11:
MALACHI LAWRENCE – EDGE – UCF
On Tuesday, Daniel Jeremiah told Chris Long that he was “this close” to putting Lawrence to the Cowboys at 12 in his final mock draft. One of the fastest risers in the process, the UCF star has a tantalizing ceiling, and there are scouts who believe he’s the best edge in the class. This is an explosive player who’s long, with long arms – 33 5/8 inches and an 81 5/8 wingspan – who’s big, athletic, and who plays with significant power, especially in his hands to stun linemen. And he has a rich bag of pass rush moves to boot. The cherry on the top of all that might have been his phenomenal Combine workout, where he blazed a 4.52 forty, jumped 40 inches in the vertical, and ripped a 10’10 broad jump. Lawrence can get up the arc, he can sink, bend, and flatten, and he has serious closing speed once he gets around the outside shoulder. And he gets there with multiple moves or counters: a club arm over, those super-strong hands to smack away the tackle’s own arms, a push-pull, a powerful, long arm which he’ll use to bullrush his way home. He also tempos his rush pacing, which is part of the aforementioned plan. His upside is through the roof. This might seem high to fans. But I wouldn’t be shocked if he found his way into the top 15. And there’s a reason Jeremiah contemplated him at 12……because he’s as connected as there is.

KENYON SADIQ – TIGHT END – OREGON
The Dolphins brass have said they want to build from the inside out, and a tight end is like a three-phase force multiplier. Run blocking, pass blocking, and receiving. He’s a new potential franchise QB’s best friend, and it’s been a position of importance for the Packers over the years: see most notably Tucker Kraft, who’s become one of the best in the league at the position. There have been rumors about the Chiefs looking at the Oregon star at pick 9, and amongst the scramble for premium position players in the top ten, you often find that really good players can tumble. Enter Kenyon Sadiq , a modern-day NFL weapon. Smaller than the prototype, he’s physical, explosive, and ultra competitive, able to be a seam stretcher in the pass game whilst displaying extreme effort and finishing as a run blocker. Sure, there are some concerns about his effort away from the field, and he’s got a number of drops on his tape. But this is a kid with an outstanding athletic profile – 11th on Bruce Feldman’s 2025 Freaks List – and an enormous upside, a true three-level receiver. With the ball in his hands, he’s a dynamic playmaker, able to get into high gear effortlessly and quickly for a man of his size, and he’s electric moving down the field. He glides across the turf and has the ability to outrun defenders going north-south or east-west. He possesses some of the rare movement ability and stylistic traits of a  Brock Bowers, albeit in a less refined way, and can contribute from multiple alignments: as an FB, an H-back, a slot, motioning across the formation into the play, or in a three-point stance at the line. And that’s where Sadiq is most intriguing because he can be a force in the run game, able to get vertical displacement and do his share of the interior dirty work. I suspect his role might be more defined in the way that Detroit uses Sam LaPorta: flexed, in-line, on the move, out of the backfield. He could thrive in Miami.

KADYN PROCTOR – OFFENSIVE TACKLE – ALABAMA
Arguably the most polarising prospect in the draft, Proctor has seen his stock rise significantly over the last three weeks, in part due to a prominent media campaign that at one point saw him tipped as a top ten pick. It wasn’t so much the campaign itself that was so eye-opening; it was the people pushing it: respected NFL media names. And whilst Miami has its own man mountain of a LT in Patrick Paul, there could be room for another along that line, either on the right side, or at G. He’s a really difficult evaluation: I watched a lot of his tape, and there’s some real highs in there but also some bad lows, even in 2025. I think ultimately he’s probably going to be better suited to G to protect some of his issues in pass protection, unless he loses considerable weight. He clearly has outstanding athleticism for his size, but that size is Planet Theory-like, in that there are only so many people on the planet of that natural size. But he certainly doesn’t have the movement skills of a guy in his 310’s. And that to me is an issue, as is the fact that I rarely saw him use his overwhelming power to his true advantage. His tape was better in ’24, and he came out of the gates really slowly last season, abused by FSU edge Mandrell Desir. He bends pretty well, and he doesn’t get overly high despite his size, but there are still issues – he overextends or drops his head into contact – and he rarely takes advantage of his massive power. In the run game, he can be a monster. He’s a line collapser on down blocks – although he can occasionally lose balance – but can maul with the best and biggest of them, able to unlock his lower body power. On the move, he generally does a solid job, and there are certainly some highlights: against Tennessee, he pulled out on a sweep at the goal line and shoved one defender into another like a bowling ball hitting the pins and taking them both out. I think his ceiling might be Rodger Saffold, one of the most underrated players of the last few seasons, but he could well become a Mekhi Becton type. I think he has to control his weight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes a better G. He has the nimbleness to work in Bobby Slowik’s zone scheme, and if that media campaign is real, then given Miami’s OL woes, he has to be considered a credible prospect. He’s also one of the youngest players in the draft and could easily slide in next to Paul and create a formidable duo on that left side.

PICK 30:
CHASE BISONTIS – GUARD – TEXAS A&M
My third-rated guard behind Vega Ione and Emmanuel Pregnon, Bisontis feels more like a Dolphin player than the aforementioned Oregon star simply because of his age: Pregnon will turn 25 before the Super Bowl. Bisontis is a well put-together LG with short arms who played a season at RT before kicking inside. He’s athletic, an easy bender with real hip flex and serious hand power: Tommy Moffatt, Texas A+M’s strength coach who was at LSU for more than 20 years and won three National Championships, says he’s the strongest player he’s ever coached. As a pass protector, he’s patient, rarely seeming panicked; he bends well and has a very solid anchor. Bisontis does a really nice job of slapping down high or outside hands, he’s fluid and well balanced through the hips and when he does allow someone in on the edge he has great flex and recovery ability to get back in. His grip strength is sound, and he’ll fit and re-fit his hands to stay on top of the rep. In the run game he’s extremely powerful, a strong finisher who does a nice job sealing run lanes. Bisontis plays angles well; he can steer and turn, and he’s explosive to the second level, able to use his feet to drive that propulsive movement into an opponent. One of only six players out of the 319 invited to the Combine who competed in every drill, he was excellent in Indianapolis. A member of Bruce Feldman’s Freaks List and known for a ‘business-like approach’ to football that focuses heavily on weightlifting, film study, and technique, this is a likable, high-character kid. He, too, is a great fit for a zone-gap, versatile running team like Miami.

CASHIUS HOWELL – EDGE – TEXAS A&M
The Dolphins need pass rushers like a fat kid needs cake. They’ve done work in the offseason, adding names like Josh Uche and  David Ojabo, but it’s clear a further injection of talent is needed. Like Proctor Howell is one of the more polarising prospects in the draft, a tremendously, almost uniquely bendy speed to power rusher with a smart football brain and serious lower body strength who might give some teams pause for thought because of his incredibly short arms – at just 30 and 1/4 inches at the Combine, and the shortest wingspan I think I can ever remember at just 74 and a quarter inches. And yet his tape is awesome. I thought he was arguably the best pure pass-rushing draft-eligible edge, who started the campaign with back-to-back-to-back sacks against Utah State on first, second, and third downs. The guy has more tricks than Penn and Teller: ghost rushes, two hand swipes, arm overs, push pulls, euro steps, and a move which almost defies gravity where he lines up over RT, takes one step outside up the arc, then jumps across hard and plants his right foot inside the tackle as if he’s going in on the right shoulder, but then he bounces off that plant foot and teleports back outside, rips under the flailing shoulder and crushes the QB. Regardless of that arm length, his hand work is extremely good, and he’s so bursty off the edge, able to attack inside the breast plate or use his trademark spin move to get into the backfield. Howell has a plan for every rush, and you feel him setting the tackle up with everything he does. There’s never a pass rush where he’s not foreshadowing something else. He wins inside, outside, up the arc, under the wing, across the face, loops, countering off contact, and when he gets past his man, he has serious quicks to close to the QB – a 1.59 10-yard split. He can hold the edge in the run game, and he plays with surprising power, although he can get engulfed at the point. Howell also has a real edge to his game, a trash talker known to bark at his opponents when he’s really in his pass rush bag. Even as a sub-package pass rusher in Hafley’s scheme, he has double-digit sack potential as a rookie.

AJ HAULCY – SAFETY – LSU
Jeff Hafley’s defenses in Green Bay relied heavily on outstanding safety play from Evan Williams and Xavier McKinney, who were so good they were able to cover up maladies on the outside. McKinney, especially, was the heartbeat of the back seven, a two-time All-Pro who made everything tick. I fully expect Miami’s new head coach to find a similar player in this draft, and he could do a lot worse than Haulcy, Big and super physical, to me he might be the best pure FS in the draft, and behind Caleb Downs the most intelligent in terms of his understanding of route distribution, the flow of offenses, and where to be at the right time. Haulcy’s FBI is off the charts, and it contributes to his all-around game, which relies less on the sort of athletic ability of some of his peers and more on his instincts and his radar for the football, which has led to 10 career picks. Haulcy is a playmaker, an opportunistic ballhawk who can change a game because of how he goes after the pigskin. I wouldn’t classify him as a headhunter, but he’s a ferocious hitter who consistently takes good pursuit angles. Last season, he played in either two high shells or in single high, often rotating back into the roof of the defense after the snap. Sometimes he’d play over the top of a corner in the slot or even as a robber. He’s very aware all the time of what’s happening, and you can see him communicating pre- and post-snap. He flows very naturally to where he feels the play will go, and he’s rarely wrong. Although he’s not the most athletic – he ran a 4.52 with a 1.55 split and didn’t do any of the jumps – he makes up for that with the aforementioned intelligence that carries him to areas of the field where he wins. As a split safety in a zone-heavy scheme, I wouldn’t be altogether shocked if he was taken on night one. I don’t think you need to overthink this kid too much, and as a 30-visit guy, I think he’s well-liked in Miami.